• @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    You’re missing how a free market is meant to work.

    In a free market, ALL costs are captured and paid for at whatever rate the market determines is fair. At the moment, polluters aren’t paying for CO2 emissions - the cost of those emissions is being paid by society. In economics, that’s called an Externality, and most economists agree that the governments role is to capture externalities, because they’re a deviation from a proper free market.

    To fix this, the government could enforce a rule that says all companies must be carbon neutral, and then allow businesses that are carbon-negative to trade their excess with companies who are carbon-positive. versions of this are being done in many places. The issue is the inertia of the existing systems, and the fact that you can’t just make these changes overnight.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      That only matters of everyone is playing fair. It’s pretty clear that the government is controlled by corporations, and it’s kinda naive to think that we can just expect corporations to allow regulation to pass that hurts their profits. What we hear about free markets and externalities and regulations is just theory. Reality says that things will get much worse.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        But then the problem isn’t capitalism, it’s corruption. Power corrupts, and Socialism places more power in fewer hands - I don’t see how that helps the environment.

        I agree that corporations (especially big oil, coal, and legacy auto) are paying off politicians to slow progress on environmental issues. But abolishing those corporations and giving the power to unaccountable beuraucrats would be even worse.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Socialism doesn’t do that, authoritarian right wing divergence in Socialism do.

          Leninism was a reactionary end to socialist revolution, not an illustrative example.

          Makno’s Black Army territories much better illustrate how Socialism works.

          Once again, Ukraine > Russia